hi there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny and unique homes today
we're traveling all the way to Alaska to meet Brooke an outdoor Adventurer and survivalist
who is actually featured on the show alone who's going to take us through her beautiful new vardo
build Brooke wanted to challenge her skills by building an off-grid wagon to help satisfy
her need for travel for just five thousand dollars Brooke built this beautiful cabin
on Wheels herself and was able to design something that was both artistic and cozy
but before we jump right into a tour if you like videos like this one where we
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hi I'm Brooke Whipple and this is moose and this is our vardo you're our heavy little dude [Music]
when people see the vardo if my husband is with me they assume he built it he gets to
say she built it and I don't think they quite believe him sometimes but they're
kind of taken aback like what is that a lot of people have never heard the word vardo
so I've been an outdoor person my whole life husband and I were on a show called alone
where you're dropped off with just 10 items to survive we did that on Vancouver Island
for seven weeks and besides that just this life of grabbing Life by the horns and just
finding Adventure when you can get it so I am a full-time YouTuber I have a channel called girl
in the woods hey guys bro quipple here welcome to my Channel today I'm going to touch on kind of a
different subject peeing and pooing in the woods it has also evolved into a Lifestyle Channel of
freedom and chasing your dreams and off-grid living and homesteading and building cabins
so the inspiration for this build I found a book by Chris chaptick called building your tiny house
stream and I saw this thing I'm like oh it is so awesome I'm totally gonna go for this and this was
just another step in my Evolution as a builder I thought I totally want to build something mobile
so the function of my vardo is my own little space where I can take anywhere and work or just enjoy
for me it's just this little inspirational Cove it's super cozy it's just a joy honestly
there are a lot of challenges with this build because there was a lot of stuff I'd never done
the round roof and fitting round windows lots of new things I had to figure out and of course
I wanted to do this 100 on my own it was just six months ago that I finished this vardo but
the very first test it did was Michigan to Alaska you know that's 3 900 miles and it's a good long
time to see what works and what doesn't and she held together good so the trailer was seventeen
hundred dollars to get to the final build took me to about five grand so about five grand total oh
[Music]
it started out as a 5x10 utility trailer but I built over the bump out so it's seven by ten
inside [Music] it weighs just a little over two thousand pounds and I can pull it with my Chevy
pickup starts out with just two by twelves on the bottom and the bump outs and then the wall
is built with two by threes and half inch plywood the roof is o32 aluminum there's four sheets up
there the roof is built with two by fours and two two by sixes on the outside they're just kind of
integrated in with the end walls which are three quarter inch plywood when you're doing something
mobile there's this conundrum of you want it to be really solid but you also need it to be
lightweight so those were some considerations that had to be made so everything is glued and
screwed including the artwork and this is stained with a an all-weather stain it's a solid stain I
put like two or three coats on at the end of the day these are just shed Windows you can buy these
really cheaply on Amazon and their tempered glass and then the artwork is just kind of what came to
my head I really love Arizona and I just wanted an Arizona Motif on this side so I have a cameo
here that's me looking through binoculars at the scene that probably took a week of my time just
the artwork using a jigsaw and it really started with the bubble window here I was like oh that'd
be cool to make it a sun and then it made the Arizona side come alive so the bubble windows are
actually meant for fences so dogs can look through the fence and the first time I went to cut out
my opening for my first bubble window I cut the outside diameter I can't believe what I just did
oh no oh dude
oh my gosh oh my goodness how do you replace material it's pretty impossible so I spent like
two hours crafting this perfect round ring that would make up the difference and I epoxied it back
into the wall any other bubble Windows since then anything round I have been so conscious
of cutting the inside diameter that about broke my heart [Music] the other thing I was concerned
about is this window going down the road it's the opposing traffic that's going to throw rocks at
you so I had to figure out a way to protect this window so this is what I came up with is just
while we're traveling I just built this to fold down just hinges closed with a couple
of carabiners and then when we're in place I can open it up it's just a couple of dowels
and I cut to fit a couple of little spots that it just slides into really a simple solution
so this side I wanted you know like a camping scene like I had in my head Northern Lights so
this is me sitting by a campfire I have the Big Dipper right here pointing to the North Star my
interpretation of Northern Lights it's the best I could come up with and then just a scene of a
wolf and a treat again the tempered glass windows on this side for light and this is actually goes
all the way through in the winter I have a wood stove so this comes out and the pipe would come
in with the gasket right there so the back is really my porch you know I really wanted to
take time to make this special I really took the time with this door and this door was a
nightmare when you're custom building a door and you also make it a Dutch door this door took a lot
of energy I wanted a window in the door I found this really beautiful stained glass window on
Etsy that I ordered from a crafts person so that was really cool again a couple bubble Windows
Just For The Whimsy of it I definitely wanted to have some plants back here
just for color and to bring the place to life now the original plans he only had a one foot overhang
so I wanted two feet because you can basically open this up and almost be completely dry with
your door open the store splits you can keep this closed this is what this little
doodad is here keep that open and you can have your door open halfway now because
we're in the interior of Alaska my little lanterns aren't doing much because we don't
get any Darkness but this would sit on the other side I've got little candles
so it's they're just both hanging here waiting for it to get dark maybe in September
so this door is made out of a core of three quarter inch plywood and then it's got six
inch tongue and groove on the outside when I was drilling the hole I messed it up so I had to cover
my mistake it's nice little touch now you wouldn't know but it's those things when you're like you
know you can't rebuild a door so when you drill something wrong you're like the world ends for a
minute kind of like the bubble window situation but it's the stuff you learn so for bathing
I go back to the old way we've done my entire life which is just a kettle bath which is just
a bin of warm water and I use an empty one too and I'll tell you why I do my hair first and I
don't get any soap in the clean water so I'll clean up and then I'll pour the soapy water
into here and then so I always have clean water and then you go to the body with the rest of the
clean water and so you just always have clean and like soapy water so you don't need much to feel
really clean but I would highly recommend like an on-demand hot water shower those are the best
I don't have one for here yet but I will because they're amazing come on I'll show you the inside
welcome to the inside of the vardo I really am aesthetic I want it to just really evoke a feeling
when I come in here so I wanted to have elements of a lot of wood I wanted to be cozy and I wanted
just little special touches wherever I could think of something so a lot of times I'll just go into
thrift stores or antique stores and just kind of look at what's there and that honestly helps
me figure out how I'm going to design the inside Space I wanted a wood ceiling and so I went with
birch plywood paneling a real full-size bed in here it's a full mattress it's really comfortable
and that was important that there's enough space for my husband and I to sleep but it's a real bed
so this is Moose's space since he's short he really likes high spots
and he also likes to be comfortable so he can sit here and look out the
window and I call it his cupcake he looks like a little cupcake
there's a ton of space underneath here and so when I'm traveling I have a composting toilet
under here I have all my extra gear my clothes yep so all my clothes are just kept right here
in my old doctor bag in my backpack the rug makes it super handy to just pull them out
I really wanted to do a Live Edge table and so I found this beautiful piece of Walnut my
first ever epoxy was this table and so it was a little nerve-wracking but it turned
out really good now this table can come up and when I travel I did find it was nice to
have it down just for ease you know obviously this is a really small space and so a lot of
times I'll just have it down so this table just comes out and I just put it under the
just put it under the bed so under this seat there's just a tiny bit of little extra hidden
storage for different little things the shades I found these awesome little paper shades available
at Lowe's or Walmart you can cut them to size they just stick up with like double-sided tape
and they don't weigh anything and they're just so easy they're Total Blackout Shades too and I just
clip them up with these little craft uh clothes pins I found that works out good for the windows
this window was purchased from a used RV store for 40 bucks so a lot of times when they demo
RVs and travel trailers you can get all kinds of pieces from there I found this picture in an
antique store it was in an old ratty frame so I took it in and had it reframed and it's kind of
ridiculously large and not practical for a build like this but I could not resist and it kind of
set the theme for how I wanted to decorate in here since this is supposed to be a little bit
of ornate you know throwback to the actual vardos I wanted some of those elements brought in in the
winter I have a wood stove a little tiny wood stove and I actually have another extra piece
of protection here that I slide in so that the bed is protected and gives me some space for the wood
stove and then this piece comes out and the pipe goes through so in the summer I take it out and I
have extra just storage here right on top of the record player which is something I really really
I had to have all my builds I have a record player so I built this specifically for my records and
all the records have a little slot and they just sit right here and then the record player comes
out and you just hit start runs off of a power station so I just love my record player [Music]
I also have a little bit of extra food storage here underneath the
record player could be any kind of storage that works out good too
so the record player is powered by this little power station I've got two speakers underneath
the bed it was just really important for me to just have that element in my vardo
I thought about wiring this but I did not decide to do it this is a small space that can be easily
handled with battery lights I love these Puck lights for that and the string lights it's
really all you need so I decided not to wire it and I have a couple just power banks that
I use to power everything I have two 100 watt panels that easily charge my stuff in the Sun
so for cooking it's just simple I love I'm a big fan of just these little butane
cookers you know they can pretty much do whatever you need
for a sink I have a gray water tank and a fresh water tank
and I have a whale pump foot valve so that you just you can do hands-free
which I wanted to do for hand washing just refill it and empty it out when it's time
so if you haven't noticed there's a lot of mosquitoes and I needed a solution for
a cross ventilation because that is the only window that opens in the back so all
I did was cut a piece of screen and I added some heavy duty velcro and I did half of it
on the door frame and half on the screen so when I'm ready to be inside and I can just
keep the Skeeters out and then if I do need to come out I just come underneath
that has worked out really good
I've gotten addicted to building and I can't stop and so I do have plans for a cabin here
and I also have plans for another mobile bigger different design mobile I've got at least two more
mobiles in me and probably a couple more cabins we'll see my husband's about had enough of me but
it's a Bardo party
thanks for watching this week's video I hope you guys enjoyed it if you'd like
to see more vardo or tiny home builds make sure you check out the playlists Linked In
the description and I will see you soon with another tiny or unique home tour oh